Paul, as a mostly former journalist, I'm going to say I think you are mostly reacting to the grafs about funding/Silicon Valley greed machine, and being referred to as "recently controversial."
A real write-up of a start-up ought to probe at larger issues, and something more than a facile "but can $X prevail against $insertbigcompanyname here.
Being skeptical of feel-good choose-a-person donation models brought out that all get funded.
Andrew is decidely skeptical of the current zeitgeist in Silicon Valley and that's needed. It's a far different environment from when you started YC.
And if Watsis can win over Leonard, it's surely going to do well, press-coverage wise.
Alright, Ryan. Pick a "controversy", purported criticism, or complication of Watsi's model or tactics that the Salon article raised and actually defend it. Find one trenchant observation this article made that is made about Watsi (in an article that is about Watsi). Do it, and I'll donate $500 to the charity of your choice.
However valuable your time is, it isn't worth more than the $500 I'll be attributing to what should take less than 5 minutes, if Andrew's skepticism was "needed" in this case.
I think Andrew did a good job of exploring the question of asking people to help an individual, when their dollars would be better spent on issue-focussed NGOs/charities (defined as greatest good for greatest number of people/tackling systemic issues).
He quotes a UC Berkeley economist to frame the criticism , invites rebuttal from Watsi Though Andrew's inclination initially resides with the economists's argument, he concludes that Watsi's model isn't likely to siphon off money that would go to a charity like Mercy Corps. He concludes, based on an interview with Watsi, that it appeals in a different way and thus isn't using a cheap fundraising model that hurts more effective charities.
Whether you agree or not with my assessment, there's no need for the donation via bet -- but if you are inclined to find another avenue for your charitable donations, I do like Mercy Corps.
You know, I actually tried. I wanted to help get that $500 into some kind of charity, so I spent a bunch of time enumerating all of the article's arguments and tried to craft some supporting rhetoric.
But there's not a single concern that holds water. They're probably valid questions -- newcomers to Watsi probably think them up on their own as they try to decide whether they want to donate -- but a legitimate concern? An actual, bona-fide "Watsi needs to address X or their trajectory will be at risk" concern? Or "we should be worried, because Watsi's success would have negative consequences for X other group" concern?
Nope. There simply aren't any. So either I'm just not clever enough, or there aren't any arguments that can be made against Watsi which don't simultaneously make the inquisitor sound like a complete douchenozzle.
As far as I can tell, Watsi is the perfect example of (a) technology uplifting quality of life, (b) Silicon Valley making it possible (would Watsi have been possible without SV?), and (c) that it's possible to live life without being forced to be motivated by greed or glory (the Watsi founders just want to help people).
> Man, I can't wait for the Watsi API to roll out.
Now that would be interesting, letting various sites get their members to sponsor people directly. I bet there are a lot of church sites that would be happy to put something like that on their web page.
A real write-up of a start-up ought to probe at larger issues, and something more than a facile "but can $X prevail against $insertbigcompanyname here.
Being skeptical of feel-good choose-a-person donation models brought out that all get funded.
Andrew is decidely skeptical of the current zeitgeist in Silicon Valley and that's needed. It's a far different environment from when you started YC.
And if Watsis can win over Leonard, it's surely going to do well, press-coverage wise.